APBA Baseball (Board Game)

In many ways, this is the real beginning for me and my sports sim game hobby. I started playing the board game in 1982 and now I’m back playing the board game. Actually, I’m still using the computer game to play the future fictional league project, but that is a different webpage.

This page is the link to all things I do with the APBA Baseball board game. I had an idea for some season projects. That aren’t traditional replays and I’m not foolish enough to try and play every season. The concept is going to be every 4 seasons or so starting in 1901. There is something fun about small ball and small pitching staffs. All seasons through 1960 will be 28 game seasons. Basically 4 games against each team in the league. Enough to be interesting, but not so long that I can’t complete any seasons. Once expansion begins, the seasons will become longer too. The 1964 & 1967 seasons will be 30 games. All seasons after that will be 32 games. A little longer, but no that much.

As I’ve been collecting the seasons I want to play, I want a little variety in play and players. Baseball has evolved over the decades. The plan has always been to skip World War 2, so the seasons jump from 1941 to 1949. It’s the only time I jump more than 5 seasons. To add some variety, I’ve to started playing the 1949 season too, different players with a very different playing style.

As seasons are completed, I will have some sort of encyclopedia with all the stats for the players. I just love that sort of thing. This encyclopedia just won’t be getting start to finish stats. The fun part will be that players who play both before and after World War 2, will actually get stats in the encyclopedia from after World War 2 first and then add on stats from the beginning of their careers afterward.

Speaking of stats, with such short seasons the odds are good for players to be more extreme statistically. Someone who gets hot for 7 or 8 games is likely to have a much better season than they did in real life. Likewise, a cold streak could leave some rotten seasons in their wake. That’s part of the fun. Yes, a player can get hot or cold (love them dice), but over 28 games it is unlikely they will remain hot or cold all season, just enough to make it exciting and likely lead to some interesting results…particularly where league leaders in stats are concerned.

In the past, I played tournaments too. I might revisit that idea moving forward and as my collection of cards continues to grow. In addition to seasons, I’ve acquired the 20 great teams from the Negro Leagues and the All-Time Franchise of the 16 teams issued in 1982, and more. See how the creative spirit moves me. However for now, I’m going to focus on the seasons and seeing how many I can play.

Below is the list of seasons and those that are either active or completed will have links to webpages showing the season. I don’t know if I’ll play into the 21st century, but that’s a lot of seasons. So, I’ll just list the seasons in the 20th century I hope to play.

1994

1997